“Dancers should realise that they are really lucky. Dancing is not a job. It's people who are chosen. And you must realise that you are chosen. Sometimes I see a performance that makes me really angry - I think, 'Those people are lucky, and they don't realise it.'”

French ballet dancer

Sylvie Guillem is a French ballet dancer, best known for her career with the Paris Opera Ballet and later as a principal guest artist with the Royal Ballet in London. She was born in 1965. From 1984 to 1989, Guillem was the top-ranking female dancer at the Paris Opera Ballet. She later expanded into contemporary dance as an Associate Artist of Sadler's Wells Theatre in London. Among her best-known performances are Giselle and Rudolf Nureyev's stagings of Swan Lake and Don Quixote. In November 2014, she announced that she would retire from the stage in 2015.